can you boot from an external hard drive

Time to replace the drive before it fails totally. You can also run chkdsk /f /r from the elevated command prompt and see what happens - it you gets lots of bad sectors and a lot of corruption, then it's If it passes the test, then there's probably nothing wrong with it. To test your hard drive, check the manufacturer and then get the diagnostic utility from: Slower (no matter how fast the hard drive) because of the connection method - you wouldn't want to use it this way on a daily basis.Ī lot of external hard drives when taken apart are compaatible with and will fit inside the computer case and work as internal drives - perhaps you can try that as an alternative (assuming you don't want to buy another internal HDD at this time).

Too many other articles argue against it. I've read some articles that say it is possible with XP using the proper BIOS and a whole bunch of changes to the Registry (changes which weren't identified) but I frantly doubt it. Here's an article on the subject which also flatly states that it can't be done with XP or Vista I've read a post by Carey Frisch, MVP, who says flatly that it can't be done. There may be other issues as well - I think XP and Vista are INTENTIONALLLY DESIGNED not to work in this way (For piracy reasons among others). I believe the major problem is the drivers which don't get loaded until Windows starts and Windows couldn't start without the USB drivers already loaded if it were on a USB External Drive (and the other driversĪs well) and there may also be some issues with the boot files. The same as running Vista from the External HDD. (assuming your BIOS supports this) - say if your CD/DVD failed, to do recovery or re-installation, but that's not It is possible to install/boot from a bootable external HDD with some minor revisions

Can you boot from an external hard drive